When Stocks Trade but the Bond Market Is Closed: Columbus Day and Veterans Day in 2026
Is the stock market open on Columbus Day? Yes. In 2026, Columbus Day falls on Monday, October 12, and U.S. stock exchanges run a normal session while the bond market is closed. The same thing happens again on Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11. Stocks trade. Bonds do not.
Most traders find this out by accident. They sit down on a Monday in October, the charts are moving, and something feels off. The tape is slower. The usual rates headlines are missing. A transfer they expected has not shown up at the bank. Nothing is broken. Two different markets are simply keeping two different calendars, and only one of them came to work.
In this guide we'll cover which 2026 dates split the stock and bond calendars, why the two markets keep separate schedules at all, what a stock trader actually loses when the bond market is closed, how to plan a session like that, and what does and does not change in a simulated funded stock account.
Key Takeaways
- Check two calendars, not one. Stock exchanges publish their own holiday list. The bond market follows a separate recommended schedule. In 2026 they disagree on eight dates.
- Expect stocks to be open on Columbus Day and Veterans Day. Neither is on the NYSE's 2026 holiday list. Both are recommended full closes for the bond market.
- Know what is missing from the picture. With no cash Treasury trading, there is no fresh yield reference for the session. Rate-sensitive stocks trade without one of their usual inputs.
- Measure the session before you size for it. Do not assume the day is quiet or normal. Read volume and range for yourself in the first part of the session.
- Treat your account rules as unchanged. If the stock market is open, a funded stock account's limits apply exactly as they do on any other trading day.
Table of Contents
- Is the stock market open on Columbus Day and Veterans Day in 2026?
- Why do stocks and bonds keep different holiday calendars?
- What changes for a stock trader when the bond market is closed?
- How should you plan a session when bonds are closed?
- Bond market holidays in a simulated funded account
Is the stock market open on Columbus Day and Veterans Day in 2026?
Yes. U.S. stock exchanges are open for a full session on Columbus Day, Monday, October 12, 2026, and on Veterans Day, Wednesday, November 11, 2026. The bond market is recommended to close on both. In 2026 these are the two days when stocks trade a complete session with the bond market shut.
What the exchange calendar says
The NYSE holidays and trading hours page states that "all NYSE markets observe U.S. holidays as listed below for 2026, 2027, and 2028." The 2026 list has ten entries: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Washington's Birthday, Good Friday, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day (observed Friday, July 3), Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
Columbus Day is not on it. Veterans Day is not on it. On both dates the core session runs its usual hours, 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The page also lists two early closes for 2026, at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 27 and Thursday, December 24.
What the bond calendar says
The bond side is published by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The SIFMA holiday schedule for 2026 lists Columbus Day on Monday, October 12 and Veterans Day on Wednesday, November 11 as full-day closes.
SIFMA says its recommendations apply to trading in U.S. dollar-denominated government securities, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, over-the-counter investment-grade and high-yield corporate bonds, municipal bonds and several money market instruments. That is most of what people mean by "the bond market."
Every 2026 date where the two calendars differ
Columbus Day and Veterans Day get the attention, but they are not the only mismatches. Laying the two published schedules side by side for 2026 gives eight dates where a stock trader and a bond trader are working different hours.
| 2026 date | Occasion | Stock exchanges (NYSE list) | Bond market (SIFMA recommendation) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, April 3 | Good Friday | Closed | Early close, 12:00 p.m. ET |
| Friday, May 22 | Before Memorial Day | Full session | Early close, 2:00 p.m. ET |
| Thursday, July 2 | Before Independence Day (observed) | Full session | Early close, 2:00 p.m. ET |
| Monday, October 12 | Columbus Day | Full session | Closed |
| Wednesday, November 11 | Veterans Day | Full session | Closed |
| Friday, November 27 | Day after Thanksgiving | Early close, 1:00 p.m. ET | Early close, 2:00 p.m. ET |
| Thursday, December 24 | Christmas Eve | Early close, 1:00 p.m. ET | Early close, 2:00 p.m. ET |
| Thursday, December 31 | New Year's Eve | Full session | Early close, 2:00 p.m. ET |
Compiled from the NYSE holidays and trading hours page and the SIFMA U.S. holiday recommendations, as published when we read them in October 2026. Schedules can change. Confirm both before each date.
Good Friday is the mirror image of Columbus Day. In 2026 the stock exchanges were closed that day while the bond market was recommended to trade until noon. The two calendars do not just differ. They differ in both directions.
Why do stocks and bonds keep different holiday calendars?
Stocks and bonds keep different calendars because they are organized differently. Stocks trade on exchanges, and each exchange sets its own holidays. Most bonds trade over the counter between dealers, with no central exchange to close, so the industry follows a recommended schedule that tracks the banking calendar.
The exchange sets its own list
An exchange is a venue with a published rulebook and a published calendar. It decides which days it opens. The NYSE list above is the exchange's own, and it does not match the list of U.S. federal holidays. Columbus Day and Veterans Day are both federal holidays, and the stock exchanges trade through both.
The bond market follows the banks
The bond market leans the other way. Columbus Day and Veterans Day are both on the Federal Reserve's list of holidays observed for 2026, on October 12 and November 11. Bond trading depends heavily on banks and on the payment systems that settle large transactions, so when the banking system takes the day off, the bond market's trade association recommends that trading stop too.
Good Friday shows the same logic from the other side. It is not on the Federal Reserve's holiday list, so banks are open, and the bond market trades for part of the day. The stock exchanges close anyway, because their own list says so.
A recommendation, not an order
One word in the SIFMA schedule deserves attention: "recommends." In its own description, SIFMA "recommends a holiday schedule for financial markets." There is no opening bell for bonds and no switch to turn off. Dealers follow the recommendation because nearly everyone else does, which leaves almost nobody to trade with.
For a stock trader the practical effect is the same as a closure. There is no active cash market in U.S. Treasuries that day, and no fresh closing yields at the end of it. One calendar is a rule. The other is a custom. Both empty the room.
Columbus Day 2026
Monday, October 12: who shows up
Same date, two calendars. Wednesday, November 11 looks the same.
tradefundrr.com
Illustrative example. Based on the NYSE, SIFMA and Federal Reserve 2026 holiday schedules as published in October 2026. Schedules can change. Confirm before the date.
What changes for a stock trader when the bond market is closed?
When the bond market is closed, a stock trader loses a live reference for interest rates, some of the day's usual participants and the normal flow of government data, and gains nothing in return. Prices still move and orders still fill. The session just has fewer inputs behind it.
No fresh yield reference
On a normal day, Treasury yields move all session and stock traders watch them, whether they mean to or not. Rate-sensitive groups such as banks, utilities, homebuilders and high-growth technology names often trade with one eye on that market.
On a bond holiday the cash Treasury market is not trading. The last yields anyone has are from the previous session's close. A stock that usually reacts to rates is, for one day, reacting to something else: its own order flow, sector news, or nothing in particular. A move in a rate-sensitive stock on October 12 cannot be explained by "yields did this," because yields did not do anything.
Bond funds still trade, the bonds inside them do not
Here is a detail that surprises people. Exchange-traded funds that hold bonds are listed on stock exchanges, so they trade on a bond holiday like any other listed security. The bonds inside them are not trading.
That means the fund's market price is moving while the prices of its holdings are standing still. On such a day the fund's own quote is doing the price discovery, and comparisons with the stated value of its holdings are less informative than usual. We are not telling you that any particular fund can be traded in a TradeFundrr account. Check the symbol list on your own platform.
Fewer people at their desks
Banks are closed. Bond desks are closed. Federal offices are closed. Some of the institutions that trade stocks every day are running short-staffed, and some strategies that trade stocks against bonds have only one side available.
We are not going to quote a statistic for how much lighter stock volume runs on a bond holiday, because we could not verify one from a source we could read. It is commonly described as a quieter session. Do not take that on faith in either direction. Our guide to relative volume shows how to measure the session in front of you against that stock's own normal.
A quieter data calendar
Columbus Day and Veterans Day are federal holidays, and federal agencies are closed. The government statistical releases that often move the market in the morning are not scheduled for the holiday itself. Check the economic calendar for the days on either side, because releases get shifted around a holiday and a busy Tuesday can follow a silent Monday.
Company news does not take the day off. Earnings reports, guidance and analyst notes arrive as usual, and October 12 sits early in third-quarter earnings season. Our week-by-week guide to earnings season covers what tends to land when.
How should you plan a session when bonds are closed?
Plan a bond-holiday session as a normal stock day with less information and possibly less participation. Confirm the calendars the week before, read the first part of the session before committing size, and be honest about whether your setups depend on activity that may not be there.
Decide before the open what kind of day you need
Every strategy has conditions it needs. A breakout approach needs follow-through, which needs participation. A fade or range approach is often more comfortable in a slower tape. Neither is right or wrong for a bond holiday. The mistake is trading a strategy that needs a busy session on a day that turns out not to be one, and then pressing because nothing is working.
Write down in advance what you need to see. If it is not there by a set time, the plan is to trade smaller or stop. A slow day is not a problem to be solved with more trades.
Let the first part of the session tell you
You do not have to guess. By mid-morning you can see whether volume in your stocks is running near normal, whether ranges are developing, and whether spreads look the way they usually do. A stock with its own catalyst can trade heavily on any date. A stock with no news on a day with no macro inputs may barely move.
The honest admission is that some bond holidays are perfectly ordinary stock sessions. The calendar tells you what might be different. The tape tells you what is.
- Confirm the date on the exchange calendar and on the SIFMA schedule. Do not rely on memory.
- Note any early closes in the same week, on either calendar.
- Check the economic calendar for releases moved to the days around the holiday.
- List the earnings reports due that day for stocks you trade.
- Flag any rate-sensitive names on your watchlist. Their usual reference will be missing.
- Set a time by which you will judge volume and range, and what you will do if both are thin.
- If you have a bank transfer in progress, remember that banks are closed that day.
- Re-read your account's rules on trading days. An open exchange means an ordinary trading day.
Watch the day after as closely as the day itself
When the bond market reopens, it has a full day of news to price that stocks have already reacted to. Yields can open away from where they closed before the holiday, and rate-sensitive stocks can respond once that reference is live again.
That makes the session after a bond holiday the one where the two markets reconnect. Tuesday, October 13 and Thursday, November 12 are worth the same attention you give the holiday itself. Our guide to trading on holidays and shortened sessions covers the wider pattern around full closures and half days.
Do not build a system on two days a year
It is tempting to look for an edge here: some reliable tendency for stocks on bond holidays. With two such sessions a year, a decade gives you twenty data points. That is not enough to separate a pattern from noise, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Preparation is the edge that is actually available. A calendar tells you what kind of day is coming. It does not tell you which way it goes.
Bond market holidays in a simulated funded account
In a simulated funded stock account, a bond market holiday is an ordinary trading day. The stock market is open, prices are live, and every limit in your account applies as written. Nothing about the bond calendar loosens or tightens a rule.
The limits do not take the day off
TradeFundrr's stock programs run on a simulated $100,000 account with a $3,000 maximum drawdown, measured at the end of the day, and reaching it is a hard breach. On the Growth path the daily loss limit is also a hard breach. On the Express path it is a soft breach that ends the trading day, and each soft day still spends the drawdown. A position limit applies as well. It differs by program and account size, so confirm the current figure in your own account terms.
A loss on October 12 counts exactly like a loss on October 13. How a given day counts toward any trading-day requirement is defined in your account terms, so read the wording there instead of assuming.
What is live and what is simulated
Several things people associate with a bank holiday are live-market events. In the live market, the settlement of trades and the movement of cash between brokers and banks follow their own calendars, and a day when banks are closed is handled differently from a normal business day.
None of that occurs inside a simulated account. No real shares are delivered and no real cash settles, because no real trade is executed. What you get in the simulation is the part that matters for skill: live prices, real session conditions and fixed rules. Knowing how the live calendars interact is still a live-ready habit, and a bond holiday is a low-cost day to practice checking them.
Bank holidays and transfers
One place the banking calendar does touch a funded trader is the bank itself. Columbus Day and Veterans Day are Federal Reserve holidays, and banks generally do not process transfers on days the Federal Reserve is closed. A transfer that would otherwise arrive on such a day can arrive on the next business day instead.
That is the banking calendar at work, and it applies to any payment from anyone. It is not a decision by the firm. A payout is decided by the written rules of the account, and the only thing that stops one is a rule the trader broke. Our guide to payouts around market holidays walks through the timeline.
The honest limit of this knowledge
This is not for everyone, and it is not a strategy. Knowing which markets are open will not find you a trade. Most traders who have a bad bond-holiday session are not caught out by the calendar. They are caught out by trading a slow tape as if it were a fast one.
Knowing the calendar will not guarantee a profitable trade, a passed evaluation or a payout. It removes one avoidable surprise from a job that has plenty of unavoidable ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the stock market open on Columbus Day 2026?
Yes. Columbus Day is Monday, October 12, 2026, and it is not on the NYSE's published list of 2026 holidays, so U.S. stock exchanges run a full regular session from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The bond market is recommended to close.
Is the bond market closed on Columbus Day 2026?
Yes. The SIFMA holiday schedule for 2026 lists Columbus Day, Monday, October 12, as a recommended full close for U.S. bond trading, covering government securities, corporate and municipal bonds and related markets. It is also a Federal Reserve holiday.
Is the stock market open on Veterans Day 2026?
Yes. Veterans Day is Wednesday, November 11, 2026, and it is not on the NYSE's 2026 holiday list, so stock exchanges are open for a full session. As on Columbus Day, the bond market is recommended to close and the Federal Reserve observes the holiday.
Why is the bond market closed when the stock market is open?
The two markets set their calendars separately. Stock exchanges publish their own holiday lists. Most bonds trade between dealers, with no exchange, and the industry follows a recommended schedule that tracks the banking calendar. Columbus Day and Veterans Day are bank holidays the exchanges do not observe.
Is stock trading volume lower when the bond market is closed?
It is commonly described as lighter, but we could not verify a reliable figure and it differs by stock and by year. Measure it yourself: compare each stock's volume so far in the session with its own normal before deciding how much size the day supports.
Can I trade in a funded stock account on Columbus Day?
If the stock exchanges are open, a funded stock account treats it as an ordinary trading day. All limits apply as written. Confirm the session on your own platform, and read your account terms for how a day counts toward any trading-day requirement.
Do funded account rules change when the bond market is closed?
No. Drawdown, daily loss and position limits are set by your account terms, not by the bond calendar. TradeFundrr's simulated stock programs use a $3,000 end-of-day maximum drawdown on a $100,000 account on every trading day, including bond market holidays.
Does a bond market holiday affect a funded account payout?
It does not change whether you are eligible. That is decided by the written rules of your account. Banks are closed on Federal Reserve holidays, so a bank transfer in progress may arrive on the next business day, as any bank payment would.
On two days in the fall of 2026, the stock market is open while the bond market stays home: Monday, October 12 and Wednesday, November 11. Stocks trade a full session, the usual rates reference is missing, banks and federal offices are closed, and your account rules are exactly what they were the day before.
Check both calendars, read the session before you size for it, and watch the day after, when the two markets meet again. None of that makes the day profitable. It makes it unsurprising, which is the part you control.
Practice quiet sessions against published rules
TradeFundrr's simulated stock programs state the drawdown and loss terms up front, so a slow holiday session is measured against the same limits as any other day.
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